Apologies, I had literally no time to blog yesterday. But since the "New Media Organizing Tools Training" is only open to chapter and caucus chairs (Suchita can probably write about it), I finally have a chance to give you a quick update you on what your Wisconsin Delegation has been up to.

Yesterday morning, I and a few other members of the Wisconsin Delegation arrived from DC after a 9 hour-long overnight bus ride. About a dozen more Wisconsin Dems arrived at about the same time after driving 23 HOURS in vans. Their dedication is really something. The opening ceremony at 4 pm was truly phenomenal. I especially want to highlight the Democratic Rappers (hilarious), Reverend Romal Tune, and of course Senator Barack Obama. The Wisconsin Delegation got 2nd and 3rd row seats so that was very exciting. I'm currently in the process of getting video of those appearances so they can be posted on the blog.

Rev. Tune was my favorite. He was on fire and he made very clear that Republicans do NOT have a monopoly on moral values and people of faith. Pretty sure my favorite line of the night was "Government needs to spend more time worrying about what goes on inside America's corporate boardrooms and less time on what goes on inside America's bedrooms." Dynamite! He was quite simply one of the best speakers I've ever seen and if we can ever get him to come to UW-Madison, he would electrify the crowd. Obama's speech was not too shabby either because I mean obviously, he's Obama. There was a lot of emphasis on how important young people are to the movement he's trying to build and how he can't do it without us. He also highlighted the importance of his predecessors who marched in Selma, AL in the early 60s for civil rights, without whom he wouldn't have ever made it to the Senate, much less candidate for president.

That night was the Clinton and Obama parties held separately at different bars. Before the parties, we heard from Robin Reynolds and Sam Hodges who are running for DNC Development Director and Political Affairs Director respectively (the only contested races this year). They both gave spot-on assessments of the jobs, the problems they will face, and what they plan to do to address them if elected. I haven't heard from their opponents but the leaders of Wisconsin Delegation endorsed them and we always vote as a block!

This morning and afternoon featured a series of workshops on how to improve the Democratic Party and College Democrat chapters using various tools such as press outreach, voter mobilization, fundraising, recruiting tools, political writing, campus-wide events, message framing, etc. I went to the press outreach and political speaking workshops and both were extremely informative. The political speaking workshop was led by someone named Parag Mahta, a former speech writer for Presidents Clinton and Bush. It was filled with tips for good political speech writing and public speaking in general which I'll try to summarize from my notes. I'd also especially like to highlight some things we can do to improve our media outreach in a later post.

Tonight is the CDA Block Party in which Chairman Howard Dean and Senator John Edwards among others will speak. Again, I'll try to post video, pictures, and commentary of the event later on. Until next time!

UPDATE: By the way, I'd like to highlight this news article about how the Democratic Presidential Candidates are snubbing the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council) by showing up at the College Democrats and the Yearly Kos convention instead of theirs. Whatever your thoughts are of the DLC, it really shows how power in the Party has shifted from moderate/conservative Democrats to the young and to progressives.

Thanks for the link, Scott!

So I'm just finishing up packing for what is sure to be a jam-packed weekend down in Columbia, South Carolina for the College Democrats' 2007 Convention. Naturally, it's a time when College Dems from around the country pick leaders and attend political workshops but this year, as a special treat, there will be several 2008 Democratic presidential candidates speaking at the convention! Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, and Representative Dennis Kucinich have confirmed they will be there. Chairman Howard Dean and Congressman James Clyburn will also be speaking. Exciting right?

I hope to be able to give you a taste of our experiences there as UW-Madison College Democrats. We will try to get some video of the appearances of the presidential candidates posted on the website as well as photos. And of course, I'll be delivering my top-notch political analysis that you just can't find anywhere else. So check back often!

Today's New York Times has an optimistic story about James "Senselessbrenner" Sensenbrenner (R-WI 5th). Check it out here (I hope they keep this up for a while). I've quoted some of it below.


...Sensenbrenner, in the 2008 campaign, is being double-teamed by Republican Jim
Burkee and Democrat Jeff Walz, friends and teaching colleagues at the district’s
Concordia University — who are staging a rare tandem challenge to the incumbent.

Burkee plans to run against Sensenbrenner in the September 2008 Republican primary in Wisconsin’s 5th Congressional District, while Walz seeks to claim the usually uncoveted Democratic nomination in a place where 63 percent of the voters favored re-electing George W. Bush as president in 2004.

...“Jeff and I are friends,” said Burkee, a history professor. “He’s a Democrat and I’m a Republican, and we disagree on a lot in terms of how we get things done. But we generally agree that it is outrageous that on a whole range of issues nothing has gotten done.”

The candidates point to energy and immigration, along with fiscal policy and the expanding deficit, as issues that should have been dealt with by Congress. Several areas of agreement will be codified in a pact the candidates will sign a week after they officially launch their campaigns. Among their agreements: no personal attacks, no money from political action committees, no gifts from lobbyists and a self-imposed limit of three two-year terms in the House.

In a show of bipartisan comity rarely, if ever, seen before in congressional politics, Burkee and Walz will launch a joint campaign Web site at Burkeeandwalz.com and produce joint advertising, bumper stickers and yard signs. Burkee promised “Lincoln-Douglas style” debates, referring to the series of dialogues in 1858 between Republican Abraham Lincoln and Democrat Stephen A. Douglas as they competed for a Senate seat representing Illinois.

“You’re going to see that campaigning you’ve always wanted and deserved. It’s going to be clean, it’s going to be substantive, it’s going to be free of big money influences,” Burkee said. “It’s going to be, I think, the kind of campaign our founders expected.”

I won't quote all of it, but it's definitely worth a read.

I myself am pretty excited about this. Any Democrat or even moderate Republican who can win in Wisconsin's 5th in a joint campaign is not going to be an ideal candidate but he/she might be the right one. As long as he/she gets Sensenbrenner out of there, I'd be happy.

It's absolutely ridiculous that a Representative who denounces immigration in all forms can continue to occupy this seat.

As the former Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Sensenbrenner didn't focus on vital national issues like wiretapping or torturing detainees or the Justice Department shakedown but rather on a far more important (?) issue: baseball.

He rates a lifetime 0% by NARAL and 8% by the NEA, according to ontheissues.org. I could go on and on about how this man needs to be kicked out of public "service" altogether. This news is refreshing, and I'm interested in seeing how this will turn out.